


Virgin Mary

by TheSaintRyan



Series: Apocrypha [2]
Category: South Park
Genre: Dissociative Episodes, Future Fic, M/M, Mental Health Issues, POV First Person, Romance, Suicide attempt warning (chapter 3), Troubled Relationship, first person descriptions of panic attacks, reunited, sequel to he is god again, very very dramatic and emo again
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-03
Updated: 2016-12-20
Packaged: 2018-04-07 11:13:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 6,901
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4261245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSaintRyan/pseuds/TheSaintRyan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Follow up to He! is GOD, again.  "A kiss is a lovely trick designed by nature to stop speech when words become superfluous."</p><p>Warning: This fic contains very dark elements including a suicide attempt that's mentioned but not elaborated on in chapter 3, and a first person perspective description of anxiety attacks and dissociative episodes throughout but especially in chapter 11.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Mother Harlot

Beauty is only skin deep. On the inside, everyone is made up of the same muscle, same blood. Organs and flesh. I stare brokenly into the broken mirror in the bathroom of a broken home. Blonde hair falls awkwardly across my empty eyes, shallow and blue. I spend as much time as I can away from all this house, which never has been a home for me. Like a fucking virus, I rip the happiness out of anyone who tries to help me. My friends have no idea what happens once I leave them. Once I am alone and forced to see myself for what I really am, and not who I think I am. My name is Kenny, and my life is a series of aborted attempts at familiarity and joy.

I've been put in such an awkward position... No matter what choice I make its the wrong one. That poor redheaded boy, that silly jew. He's ruined something beautiful, something that could have lasted. I found something good and it was taken from me, just as it always is.

But something draws me back to that flame, that bright sun shining, that beacon. My eyes catch on my scars. The trail my lips, seeking out the mark where blood flowed once upon a time at a party. Where something incredible happened that must have been a dream all along, because happiness is far beyond my reach. No matter how depressing I sound, no matter how whiny I am, I miss him. I want him.


	2. Whore of Babylon

A soft scent bounces and weaves across unknown lengths of molecules, sprinting through the ever-cold air of the hallway. It reaches its destination with great trepidation and longing. As the blonde-haired boy deeply inhales the soft, sweet scent of peaches he looks up from his books, looks around at the pulsing mosaic of students around him, and then continues on his way. As he takes his carefully counted steps down the frozen hall, he continues to look down, concentrating for some reason on his macroeconomics book. He reaches eighty-seven steps and turns left into the classroom.

As he takes his seat he notices the soft scent again. Alice-blue eyes close gently and in passing the scent is magnified, intensified until the boy can hardly stand it. As his heart gently sings its mechanical song, his body slows to a soft hum as he deeply inhales the scent and grasps it as long as he can before he sees stars and flashes and is forced to exhale. He enjoys the syrupy smell for at least two minutes before the teacher enters and he opens his eyes to the light. His heart sings its song and his body roars back to life. The fluorescents above him light his Alice-blue iris and Prussian blue scurf rim and he is temporarily blinded.

The teacher is an idiot and no one seems to notice except him.

Every time he enters the labyrinthine halls of the school, he smells the saccharine smell of peaches as if its source is just out of sight. Around one corner. Through one door. He feigns a smile as another boy approaches him and opens his pink lips to reveal a torrent of language raining towards him. "Hey. I feel like I haven't seen you in forever. Where've you been dude?" The speaker waits a reply and the spoken-to looks down nervously. The speaker is pale with raven hair and brown eyes. The spoken-to replies, "Yeah. I've been… around," quietly and then looks from the floor to the fallow eyes of his classmate. This boy smells like sharp wisps of tang, not soft trails of peach.

Young, bright blue eyes slip around the halls, catching on individuals and searching, examining the pulsing culture around him. They are not satisfied, and fall back to the floor.

Outside, hands shift in shade from pink to red, begging to be replaced in their pockets. They are not obliged, as the blonde lights a cigarette in between classes. As the cancer and frigid air alternate chances to inhabit the boys chest, he looks across the arctic scenery, continually searching for the source of the intoxicating scent. Thin bones stretch underneath pale skin on a young man's face, as a hopeless grin is twisted out of chapped lips. After he flicks the cigarette's remains away from himself, he reenters the cold school building.

After class, he follows the streets around like a labyrinth, twisting and turning whenever he pleases. Without the redhead, the one who drove him crazy with his absence, he has no destination. Two years since truth or dare ruined everything. Since the night two hearts were broken with one kiss.

Two years.


	3. Birthplace of Sin

It's at the mall that I see him. Harlequin green eyes shine from across a store, red hair wildly falling out of a silly green hat. I avert my eyes; they are not worthy of seeing something as beautiful as him. I feel like a buffoon, watching this specter of my childhood. His eyes catch mine and the air shifts, the whole world feels like it jerks from around me, and I'm just some anchor floating wildly and failing to catch anything. As quickly as our eyes meet he turns and walks away, deciding to spend his money elsewhere. I don't have any money anyway, so I go home.

The house is deserted, as always, but I have nowhere else to go. I lock myself in the bathroom and stare myself down in the broken mirror I find there. HE faces back at me, too harsh and honest and it makes me sad. As I slide down the wall to desperately clutch at my knees I almost break down.

My father's beer that I steel from the fridge steadies me long enough to stumble to my bedroom, falling to the bed after kicking my ripped up shoes across the room. Peeling, rotten wallpaper graces my vision, and I light a cigarette to compliment the pilfered beer.

My head is swimming and I down some pills that I stole from my mother before drifting off to another troubled slumber.

In my dreams he smells of peaches.


	4. Magdalene

When I remove myself from the void, my vision is hazy and unfocused. I stumble from my bed, but everything feels wrong. My legs are weak, my body too heavy. I panic, for a second, will I die? Does it matter?

I struggle my way across my room, which until this has always seemed too small but now seems to stretch forever, reaching for my jeans and the phone contained within. I hold the screen to my face, struggling to read the numbers I am dialing. Who can I call? Instinct takes over and I weakly strike the code, unsure if I even hit the right buttons.

"H... hello..?" A sleepy voice across town answers, "who is this?"

My lips part but refuse to release any sound greater than a gasping breath. I force all my energy into my lonely call for life, "K-ky... I-'m d... dying."

The phone goes silent with a soft click, and it is readily apparent that the other side of my conversation has left. I listen to the crushing, soft blanket of silence, of soft pops and swishes until the phone begins to blare an alarm to signal my failure to accept what has been presented to me.

I am alone.

Will I escape?

I lay on the dirty floor of my dirty room in a dirty house and try to accept my fate. I hear a rush of footsteps to my front door and pounding, but my parents aren't home. Hell, they may never come back for all I know. It's been a week since I've seen or heard from either of them. I hear the footsteps pound to my window and barely see fingers prying the rusted frame open. Wild red hair crashes through and Kyle looks around for a few seconds, trying to find me in the dark. I gasp for breath and he crouches down, holding my head in his lap as he hyperventilates. He sees the beer and empty bottle of pills on my bedside table, and his concern flashes to anger. "God... damn it Kenny. Are you trying to kill youself? Is this some sick attempt to get me to talk to you? What are you thinking?" I cough in response and Kyle calls 911.

As his pale fingers trace abstract patterns though my hair, I instinctively pull closer, seeking for some source of comfort and warmth to get me through the ice overtaking me. "My friend took a bunch of pills with beer and I think he's dying." He continues his conversation, but I can't understand the words anymore. He hangs up and lifts me, it must be easy since I don't eat very much anymore, and carries me to his car. As we drive towards life, I know he is speaking to me, but all I can do is cry.

"Ky-le... you-'re an... angel."

The lights hurt, and people are shouting. I know Kyle was with me as long as he could be, but once swinging doors separate us for what may be forever I can only feel loneliness. The doctors tell me not to worry, and then I feel static all over, and then nothing.

When I wake up, Kyle sits next to my bed. I look to him, but his gaze is unreadable. "Kenny, the hospital couldn't contact your parents. Do you know where they are?" His questions are direct, and they stab deep into me. A tear falls, as I tell him the truth for the first time in what seems like forever.

"No."

"What did you think you were doing?"

"Sleeping."

His harlequin gaze slides from my face to the wall behind me, his face beginning to crack. He looks so beautifully broken. "Kenny. You can't stay alone in that house." I have no response. I just continue to look at him looking at the wall as he cries. As we cry. When his eyes meet mine they are empty, much too old for their age.

"Kenny, I have to go to work now. But I'll be back. And we'll talk, alright?" I nod, and he stands to walk away. He steps directly to my side, placing a hand on my shoulder, before leaving the room. Behind him trails a sweat smell, so familiar to me.

Peaches.


	5. The Gentleman

He comes back, like he promised he would. When I wake up, there are flowers in a pot on the table beside me. He walks through the door, carrying some coffee and a bagel. I smile and accept his gift. We both part our lips to speak, inhaling and realizing our folly. Both of us stop, waiting for the other to speak, before he begins tentatively.

"How do you feel about me?"

I stop, and ask myself the same question. It's hard to answer, and I finally just release the words as they come.

"When... I see you my heart does this funny little dance, like I'm running into a friend torn from my side long ago by one of the many bitter disappointments that make up life."

He smiles, clearly amused, and lets a small laugh escape. "Quite the poet."

He stands, and I sit, in an awkward, heavy fog of silence for a moment, before his bright gaze slides to me. "I want you to come live with me." His statement is harsh, real. It carries a heavy burden, and I am taken aback for a second. I shake my head, declining his generosity. I don't need charity.

"That isn't a question. It's either my house or the psych ward Kenny. The hospital sees this as a suicide attempt and they trust me to take care of you because I've been here every day. You are coming to live in my apartment."

I look away, focusing on the wall. With an air of trepidation, I accept.

The next morning, he helps me down to his car and loads me in. We drive to my house in silence, and within twenty minutes I have everything I need, and we're off again. His apartment is on the nicer side of town, the walls are pure white and the wooden floors are beautiful. His furniture is simple, comfortable.

I feel so torn. Like some fucked up version of Cinderella. He smiles at me, his red hair wild around his handsome face, and for the first time in years I twist my face into a smile. At first, our relationship is stained, strange, almost foreign to us. As if the last two years have somehow negated our entire childhoods. Within hours we are speaking to each other as if we never spent a moment apart. I suggest going to a party for old times sake. Kyle declines, saying he has to work in the morning, and I shrug.

"Do I have to go outside to smoke?" I ask plaintively, hoping for an answer I'm doubtful about. "Unfortunately yes, but there's a patio with a great view. Follow me." He says, before walking away. I follow him, and when I step outside the view is stunning. By this point the setting sun is beginning to paint the sky vivid reds and oranges, yellows and pinks. The skyline of South Park is quirky, beautiful in a strange way. Like Kyle is.

I light the cigarette quickly, inhaling and then spewing a long stream of deadly smoke. After a minute of strained silence, I weakly offer "I missed you."

The pain in his eyes tells me it's not enough, but his warm voice replies "I missed you too."

I turn to him, calm for some reason, and pose the question,

"Truth or dare?"


	6. The Virgin

His kiss is electric on my lips, chapped from my stay in the hospital. My body aches with loneliness, and I feel myself growing lighter as I'm freed from grief. His hand finds the back of my head. I feel drugged, lolled with saccharine lust.

Those lips, oh God, those lips. His lips find my cheek, my neck. I moan with want, and he gasps at the sound. I speak, for some reason sabotaging our union for a second time, "Kyle, should we slow down?"

Magnetism answers me with another kiss, and heat brings our bodies together. His hand slides down my back. His lips taste like Springtime, full of life and sunshine and rain. We part for breath. As his hands sketch loneliness across my chest, our eyes meet again. His bright green swimming. Those eyes snap into a startled realization, and he steps back, stuttering an apology and turning to walk away. "Kyle, stop."

He continues inside, muttering about going to sleep.

The cigarette dangling from my fingers sputters out, and I feel hope do the same.


	7. The Whore

I stand on his patio for an hour, before I walk through the dark apartment and out the front door. I walk through the empty streets of our frozen town. I have no one to turn to, so I return to my childhood. I sit alone for more hours than I care to count.

When he finds me I'm sitting on the bank of Stark's Pond, the frozen surface supporting my feet. It's been a day since our second kiss, two years since our first. He stands uncomfortably, shifting weight from one foot to the other, for a minute before sitting next to me in the snow. He leans his head toward my shoulder, and I feel it grow damp with his tears.

"I'm sorry," he whispers into my ear, "I don't know what I was thinking." I look at him in disbelief before turning my attention to the shore across the ice. "Bullshit, Kyle. We both know exactly how we feel and..." I break off, tears choking my tears and keeping me from exposing myself further.

"Kenny, the past is the past." He says dismissively, as if that even begins to answer our apparent disagreement on the terms of our friendship. I turn my eyes to him, blue drowning in tears meets green filled with hidden meeting. "Kyle, I can't even begin to repent for what I did. Leading you on and changing you and leaving like that. But since then I haven't stopped thinking about you once, and nothing could make me as happy as I was when we were together all the time." My sorrow spills out and Kyle listens. As I speak I can see his face breaking, his mask falling as he bares himself to me.

"You broke my little heart, Kenny. You threw me away for expressing what we were both feeling. You threw me away into the depths of loneliness. I was so broken, the world was grey."

Our eyes stay locked for a moment before we kiss again. My head spins, my heart dances.

I feel happiness again.

His bedroom is warm, his bed is soft. We lay together, each holding the other, and my heart pounds.

Though it was night, we sweat heavily into the sheets. The navy of the sky scabs over with dark, heavy-lidded clouds and bleeds heavily into the streets. I loop my arm around his neck, pulling him close so he can smell the coffee stains on my breath as I whisper. I smile in his face and he laughs before we step out the window and sit on the patio. I light a cigarette, feeling the smoke slowly bring me closer to death. We sit and stand in the rainfall, blue eyes dancing in green. We talk in hushed voices, barely audible in the percussion of the sky's tears on the buildings and pavement and people.

Where do we go from here?

Night in Denver is harsh and heavy, the nightlife screaming its sermon of spiritual ambiguity and moral decay. The two of us join the flocking sheep, lured by the preaching of seedy bars and insidious back alleys. And we smile.

He laughs as I fake my way through a B-movie vampire accent; his voice raises in pitch and cuts off abruptly as I playfully bite his neck. He sighs harshly and pushes me out the door. And we smile. I grab his elbow and throw him into the door of a darkened diner. He giggles and his eyes close, lost in the pleasure of the night. As I replace my hand in its pocket sheath, his dark eyes flutter back to life. And he smiles.

As we jump around from place to place, searching for something to do in this dreadful frosted air, he looks over to me constantly. Checking on me. I know he's worried, but the hospital band hiding my wrist is just a mistake. I stop walking and turn to face him and as we gravitate toward each other in the street, I tell him that I'm alright. That nothing like that will ever happen again. And he smiles.


	8. The Beast

The next day we go back to my parent's house to pack up the rest of my things. As I exit his car I pull the hood up on my sweatshirt in a futile attempt to keep the frigid wind from biting at my face. The house is dark, desolate. Just as I remember. Kyle opens the fridge and deadpans to me. "How long has there been no food in your fridge, Kenny?" I look to the wall dully and lie through my teeth, "Ran out about a day before I called you." My mind reminds me that it was a month and the dull ache in my heart returns. The more time I spend in the darkened house the more pain returns to me.

He walks back to the car, braving the frost, to get the boxes he brought. As soon as the door shuts behind him, I race to the topic of our conversation and grab the last of my dad's old beers, gulping it down quickly. My stomach feels drunk, but my mind is full of darkened dreams of my time in this prison alone.

He returns and we complete our task mechanically, no conversation emptying the shell of a home of its sorrowful silence. The atmosphere is heavy, and I am uneasy in the cage, so I pack hurriedly. The drive back to his apartment is awkward and quiet; tense. As we carry my few belongings up the stairs silently, I feel the resonant pain leave my body.

I stand awkwardly in his kitchen, awkwardly out of place. I feel like living furniture, just cast into the room and left to float. He sits comfortably on the other side of the counter, looking like he fits in with the rest of his home. His bright gaze sits on me, questioningly. Accusatory. "How long were your parents gone, Kenny?" He asks me in a voice, made harsh with worry. I look over his head at the wall behind him, lying from a clenched mouth, "A week," afraid that if I open my mouth the truth will pour out.

He stands, suddenly, and his eyes flash with anger, "God damn it Kenny if we're going to do this then you have to stop lying to me. Where the hell did your parents go and what happened to them?"

A tear slips from my eye, and I break down. "They told me they never loved me," I choke, "never wanted me. They told me that they weren't coming back."

I fall to the floor, and Kyle approaches, holding me to his chest as I sob my admissions. His lips quiver as he quietly prays encouraging words against my ear, and I turn to kiss him.

"Kyle," I mutter, "what happened with my parents doesn't matter." I speak with our lips resting together, "I never felt half as home with them as I do here. I've never felt this safe in my life. Your are everything to me, now."

He cries with me, until we start to laugh at ourselves, sitting on the kitchen floor and crying, clutching each other like dolls.

"We are a mess." He giggles, and I feel even that much more alive.


	9. Messiah

My eyes open to view his sleeping form. His face resting on the pillow mere inches from my own. With a sigh I untangle our mess of limbs and step from the blankets to the cold wooden floor. As I pad my way out the bedroom door, he shifts in restless slumber; the scene is cut from my senses as the heavy door clicks shut in my wake.

The apartment is silent, vacant. My footsteps shatter the still air as I cross to the kitchen and pour myself a glass of water. The clock on the opposite wall reads 4:02am, and I close my eyes in exhausted anguish. For whatever reason, I've failed to sleep through the night again. Nightmares strangle my slumber nightly. I slip to the floor, back resting on the fridge, and cradle my pregnant mind in my arms. Thoughts whirl through my head; visions of my twisted dreams, doubts, panic.

What does he see in me?

After a half hour I pick myself up and step back to our bedroom. As I replace my weight on the mattress he stirs slightly, but his slumber remains uninterrupted. I allow my consciousness to discandy into a doubtlessly empty slumber once again.

The morning comes with no fanfare. I feel just as hollow as the night before. I'm sitting at the kitchen counter, sipping dully on coffee as black as the previous nights' dreams, as the sun slowly creeps across the landscape of our apartment; Kyle yawns widely as he steps out of the bedroom, bright red pajama pants dangling precariously from his hips. His bright, sleepy eyes meet mine and pause for a minute before he turns to the coffee pot and pours himself a cup. "Why do you look like you haven't slept all week?" He asks simply. I'm new to honesty, so by reflex I lie; "Rough night. No big deal."

His smooth exhale is marked by deep worry, but he shrugs it off and stands across the barren counter, drinking up his caffeine.

We drink in strained silence, before he announces that he is going to take a shower. He looks to me, posing a question with his mischievous, harlequin eyes.

I stand behind him, arms wrapped around his stomach. Our warm, wet skin resting together. My head lies heavily on his shoulder as I whisper lines of poetry to him. He turns to face me; hair darkened to brown cutting jaggedly across venom eyes. He rests our lips together as he whispers to my lungs, "I love you," says, "I need you."

His voice is pleading for a response.


	10. Holy Ghost

As insomnia clouds my mind the days begin to blur together. Kyle's eyes dance with questions; mine plead to keep them in. As we lie together they silently dangle from his lips.

Our whole relationship has become dangerously precarious; I remain stagnant for fear if I tip anything too far in any direction it will all crash around me.

Guilt is caustic in my stomach, filling me to gluttonous extents. Words that I swallow replace meals, real food making me ill. Phantoms haunt me, wearing away. Any sort of real emotion too close to honesty, I may lose grasp on myself. For some reason, love is killing me.

His bright eyes meet me from across the table as he heats. Since I had such a big, late lunch ( of everything I am unable to speak,) I refrain. "How long has it been since you've eaten?" his lips part, destroying the strained silence between us. I choke back the number eight- days, not hours- and look instead to the table.

Before it registers that he's moved at all, the slam of the front door startles me back just in time to let out a strangled cry at his absence.

But love doesn't hurt, does it?


	11. Apostasy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here it is! After almost eight years since the bulk of this story was written I finally finished it! The fact I picked this story up at all after so long is entirely thanks to euphoricmind and their lovely comments. I certainly hope this ending is what you hoped for, darling. This last chapter may seem like an abrupt shift in tone, but I wanted a damn happy ending for these two. More notes at the end. tw/cw for first person descriptions of dissociative episodes, anxiety attacks, and general mental illness.

The sun has set when he returns. I can’t tell if he’s calm or incredibly angry; he holds himself tightly coiled like a snake and I’m awaiting his strike or his hiss. His red hair is messy, looking like he’d spent the day pulling and tearing at it. I’m shaking on the couch. He spends some time making tea and straightening odds and ends on the counter in the kitchen before he comes to rest beside me, setting one cup in front of me on the table and gripping his own like a lifeline. Finally, one hand comes to rest on my knee and my shaking stops. He seems calm now, or maybe resigned.

“Kenny,” he says, “it’s okay if you aren’t ready or able to tell me what’s going on with you. You don’t have to talk about anything in your past, or explain any of the things you’re going through. All I need from you is for you to be honest with me. Tell me if you aren’t sleeping. Tell me if you don’t feel like talking for a day or two. Please just let me know. You don’t have to say why, just say when. Please.”

I feel myself crack. I feel the pieces shift but rest together, like a mirror that cracked during a move. I feel my mind frantically adapting to the new brokenness. Years of mental anguish have made me adept at handling it in a weird way; my illnesses adapting to fit around my coping mechanisms as quickly as I set them up. I just nod, because an alarm goes off and tells me that I need to respond but my breath has left me and I recognize a panic attack incoming and what if I can’t do it what if he leaves what if he leaves but it’s okay he’s here right now and he’s warm and real and his hand is tight on my knee and his hand is an anchor. Breathe, just focus on breathing just focus on his hand on your knee. Put your hand on his, try to move your arm, try to reach out okay good you did it your hand is there just don’t leave Kenny just don’t leave again your body can’t take it oh great now I’m addressing myself in the third person. Calm down Kenny.

“Kenny, please calm down.” His voice is soft and musical and my attention snaps back into the external. The world. Kyle is still there next to me, and we’re still on the couch, and his hand is still on my knee but it feels like it’s been hours. I should say something, so I do.

“I’m sorry, Kyle. I think I might be broken.” It seems so odd, saying it out loud. I can’t read his expression, so I try to mimic it; my lips pulled taught in a grimace, eyes angling down and brow heavy, it’s grief. I should say something else, so I do. “It’s okay though, I’ve been broken before. I think I can fix it like I did before. Well, not fix it, but I think I’ll get over it and be okay.” I’m trying desperately to convince both of us that this will be okay, but from the tightness in Kyle’s face and shoulders and back I don’t think I’m succeeding. I’m scared and so is he but I’m not lying. I’ve been broken for a long time and I always dealt with it before.

“I don’t know that I’ll be any good at this, Kyle. But I want to try.” My face is towards him but my eyes won’t focus, drifting and dancing; looking at someone else’s furnishings that I didn’t pick, weren’t there to pick because I walked away. I’m scared to look back at Kyle because if he’s still sad and grimacing then I’m more fucked than you thought but finally your eyes settle. He’s looking at my like he would look at an optical illusion. But he’s nodding. And he says, “At least you’re talking to me again. Whatever it takes Kenny, I want this to be okay. I want you to be okay.” And he puts his arm around me. I sink into him and I feel relaxed, and I fall asleep.

I’m still on the couch when I wake up; it’s early but Kyle’s already left for work. It feels weird, having spilled everything so suddenly; like I’m lighter but more weighed down. It’s off my chest but now it’s real.

I feel new and fragile; like I’ve never been this person before and I don’t know how to do it yet-- how to feel or react and move or breathe. Like I’ve taken possession of another person’s body and I don’t know it’s parts and intricacies. I drink some tea and go back to bed on the couch.

I’m walking, we’re walking together and Kyle’s arm is wrapped loosely around mine at the elbow-- an anchor-- and it’s snowing. It’s snowing so much that I can barely see and Kyle’s face is screwed up against the cold wind and the flakes of snow drifting into both of our eyes but I’m letting him lead us. Kyle always knows right where he’s going and how he’s going to get there and I’m content to follow. It strikes me that this isn’t quite a memory, but it’s not exactly imaginary either; like me and him have done this before but not exactly this. A different city or a different month or day. Maybe it was day time when it really happened but now it’s night and the streetlights barely glow out around the flurries of snow.

I feel unsure. I feel lost. I feel cold but right where Kyle’s arm touches mine is a blazing heat. It’s so cold but my chest is brimming with fire and I feel like I can make it; wherever we’re going I can make it as long as Kyle is with me.

I wake with a start. The light pooling on the floor is amber and sepia with the afternoon’s last murmurs but the cup of tea on the table is still steaming and too hot to drink. I get up off the couch and walk down the hall, open Kyle’s door and he’s sitting there at his desk, humming quietly while filling out some forms. The desk lamp is on but I don’t know how he can stand it-- the evening light streaming through the window in the living room is peaceful and soft and his lamp is harsh. I clear my throat and he turns, smiling.

“Good morning, sleepy head.” He says and then goes to turn back to what he’s doing but he stands at the last minute. He crosses the room and pulls me into a hug. It takes a while but finally my arms answer me and rise, wrapping around him while I tuck my face in close to his neck. I take a few deep breaths his hand starts rubbing my back. “I missed you,” he says and I almost panic. Was I gone? Did I leave again without knowing? How long was my body on the couch? But he means while he was at work and I have to repeat that to myself like a mantra.

Kyle’s green eyes are soft when I pull back and I catch his left hand in my right. I want him to come sit with me, start a movie in the soft light of the living room. Cuddle up on his couch. I don’t know how to say these things, so I just give his hand a light tug. He understands though, and acquiesces. He follows me to the couch, but by now the light is blue and purple and fading darker.

Being with Kyle makes things easier to deal with, but my brain is always itchy-- the dull ache of knowing things are still messed up and won’t just go away-- and I finally open my mouth to start mumbling out my feelings. I tell Kyle parts of it; tell him the parts that I know how to articulate and that don’t seem as scary. He nods and his face gets wet sometimes but he doesn’t leave, hasn’t left.

I don’t leave often, the last few months. A couple times while Kyle is at work when I forget to turn on the TV and the silence becomes so much that my brain retreats; takes me somewhere far away where time is hazy and my thoughts are like drifts of smoke sliding through my fingers as I reach for them. It’s always later when I come back, my body loose on the couch or standing in the kitchen next to a cup of ice cold coffee. I don’t like it, I hate it when I’m gone; who’s here instead? Who am I when I’m not there? Who is that version of me? I know my body is still there, still moving and walking; sometimes when I leave I’m sitting on the couch or in the shower and then when I come back I’m standing on the balcony or staring at a book or staring at the mirror.

But usually I’m okay. Things seem to be more or less routine. We seem happy. I am happy, in fact, but I never know how Kyle feels. His face is a master class in neutrality. Even when he does show his emotions I’ve never been good at recognizing them on other people. I have to try to wear their expression before it clicks in my head. I try not to do that, though. People tend to look even more broken once I show that I’m just an imposter; mimicking people’s expressions because I can’t feel things and I can’t express the things I do feel and I don’t even know if I’m real half the time.

One day, about a month after I moved in, I wake up still in Kyle’s bed. He’s at work but it’s Friday. Next to the coffee pot is a sticky note with a phone number. I stare at it for a while. There’s no other information on it, no name or reason. I make it halfway through my day before curiosity overtakes me and I call it.

A young woman answers, “Lake Dillon Plaza mental health counseling, this is Marianne how may I direct your call?” and I freeze. I’m quiet on the phone but she seems patient. She says, “are you there?”

“Yes.” I stutter. “My friend left this number for me so I’m not really… I don’t know how you can… direct my call.” She hums in acknowledgment and I can hear her typing through the phone. “Are you interested in seeing someone?” She asks. It makes me stop and think. I don’t know how I’ll afford it. I say as much and she hums again. It could come off as dismissive but it sounds more soothing almost. Like she’s humming to a fussy child. 

“We have options if you’re interested. You could at least have an introductory meeting. See if you want to continue before we do any paperwork or anything. I can talk to one of our counselors if you want to just give me a little information about yourself.”  
I’m so unsure. My head is spinning and there’s something like hope blooming in my chest but it’s being smothered by panic. “Sure,” I say weakly, distantly, like I’m not really saying it. I will myself not to leave and it’s the feeling of the phone pressed against my ear that holds me tethered to reality.

“Do you want to give me your name?” Marianne says, and I do. “Alright Kenny. What kind of issues are you having?” It shocks a laugh out of me, that I’m not even sure. I go through a mental list; the dark cloud of sadness, the fear of abandonment, the sour stench of terror in the night, the fear sprinting through my blood like a rabbit all day, the times when I’m not even in my body when I leave.

“What do you mean you leave?” She asks and I realize the list wasn’t just mental.

“It’s like…” I start. I take a deep breath. “It’s like sometimes I just go somewhere else. My brain just leaves and I don’t know what it does but I’m not… there. My body is there but I’m somewhere else and it’s foggy. I lose time. I lose so much time.” I’m crying, by the end. Marianne is typing again, humming softly the whole time. It makes me feel better; I stop crying at least.

“Well, Kenny we have someone who I think would be a good fit if you’re interested. No pressure. Call me tomorrow and let me know. Take some time to think. And some advice; tell your friend thanks. Even if you don’t come see us. It’s good that you’re talking about what you’re going through.” I smile, say thanks and she hangs up. I miss her humming immediately but I turn on music instead and read until Kyle gets home.

I’m halfway through the book. I set it down, and rise off the couch. Kyle looks over from where he’s hanging his coat in the closet and he smiles and it’s so bright that I’m tempted to close my eyes. I don’t, though. I take in his smile and the light in his eyes. I go to him and grab him to myself and hold on, too tight probably, but he just holds me back.

“I called the number you left,” I say and Kyle’s smile grows wider somehow, “and I think I want to go see someone. I don’t know how I’ll afford it though. And I don’t know…” I stop there, looking at the door behind Kyle, getting lost in the white paint. “I just don’t know.” I say at last. He unwraps me from his arms and grabs my hand, pulling me behind. We head into his room, our room, and he shows me the forms he’d been filling out. They are for access to mental health care; at least twelve free sessions paid for by The Denver Foundation’s Colorado Health Access Fund. It’s too much, all at once. 

It’s odd, that someone I wronged so horribly has become the most important, supportive part of my life. Like something has to go wrong because this is going completely against karma. It’s something I never thought I would get to have, never thought I would deserve. But here he is, holding my hand and smiling at me and explaining a bunch of details about the forms but they don’t matter. What matters is that I’m here. I’m still alive and Kyle loves me, and I love him too. I don’t know how to read faces but I know this deep in my gut like I know my name and like I know how Kyle feels curled against me in bed radiating heat in his sleep.

I kiss him and hope unfurls like a flower under spring’s thawing sun and drizzling rain. I kiss him and I know where I belong. I kiss him and I know, no matter what, that things will be okay. I know what happiness feels like.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few notes: Kenny's experiences dissociating are heavily based on my own; others may experience dissociation differently.
> 
> The Denver Foundation and it's Colorado Health Access Fund is a real thing but as far as I know it doesn't function the way I wrote it too. I based the program Kyle shows Kenny on something that exists in my home state and allowed me to attend a year of therapy sessions at no cost to me.
> 
> Special thanks again to euphoricmind for inspiring me to return to my old work.


End file.
